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Comment I got email spam about this before it was on here! (Score 1) 26

The only thing that's amazing about this is that I got email spam about this new "development possibility" before the story was even on slashdot (yes, I have bad spam filters). It's so ridiculous how companies apparently think that it's ok to send unsolicited email just because my address shows up on google play for an android app. Avoid at all cost is therefore my take-away.

Submission + - Lenovo Considers A Retro ThinkPad X300 Remake With Current Technologies (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: The ThinkPad brand has been around for a long time; the first model was introduced by IBM way back in 1992. And although technological advances over the past two decades have lead to Lenovo ThinkPads that are lighter, much faster, and highly more cable than any model in the early 1990s could have ever imagined, there's still a clear visual link between yesteryear and today with regards to design cues. Well, apparently, Lenovo is seriously toying with the idea of making a "unique" model that would incorporate some of the strong ThinkPad language that has been erased in recent years. "Imagine a blue enter key, 7 row classic keyboard, 16:10 aspect ratio screen, multi-color ThinkPad logo, dedicated volume controls, rubberized paint, exposed screws, lots of status LEDs, and more. Think of it like stepping into a time machine and landing in 1992, but armed with today's technology." It might not be for everyone but some execs at Lenovo think there might be a market for it.

Submission + - Amazon Opens Up Echo's Alexa To Developers (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: Amazon announced Echo. a wireless speaker with a built-in, voice-controlled, personal assistant called Alexa in November last year. Seven months down the line, Echo became available for purchase in the US and UK and will begin shipping on July 14th.In future Alexa will no longer be tied exclusively to Echo. Amazon has announced that the Alexa Voice Service (AVS), the cloud-based service behind Echo, is being made available for free to third party hardware makers who want to integrate Alexa into their devices.To propel developers and hardware manufacturers interest in voice technology and their adoption of Alexa, Amazon has also announced a $100 Million Alexa Fund, open to anyone, startups to established brands, with an innovative idea for using voice technology.
Could it be Amazon's Alexa that beats Siri and Cortana into the home in devices other than mobile phones and tablets?

Comment What can be done to get more women into CS? (Score 3) 155

Hi,
I'm the "typical" white male in CS gradschool. My subjective view is that CS has one of the lowest number of women compared to other STEM disciplines. I'd estimate that typically there are about 5% tops in classes or at conferences. For various reasons I think that this situation is a shame for the community and society as a whole. What do you think can be done to improve this?

Thanks!

Comment Re:So train them. (Score 1) 97

Read the entire paper, not the summary. There are some interesting points there. One is that NSA does not have a shortage of cybersecurity experts. That's because they train them. It takes three years of full-time training. The agencies that complain that they can't find anybody aren't investing in their people in the way that NSA does. Other agencies don't invest in their people like that.

I think that's really an unfair comparison. Do other agencies have the insane funding that NSA has? The lack of accountability (and by that I mean they don't have to justify their spend as much). Also, as the article noted, the NSA is except from these pay scales.

This is typical of employer whining about not being able to get the people they want. Sure, the companies who want people with some very specific skill set, right now, often at low pay, can't find them. Organizations that are willing to train people don't have those problems.

And this goes to show that you missed the points of the report. Most federal agencies are forbidden from paying decent wages because they have to use the pay scales that the government sets.

If you want to make the point that the government pays shit, then you should phrase that differently...

Comment Re:+1 Article Troll (Score 5, Informative) 206

While the article may not have very diplomatic wording, the essence is true: I installed Linux Mint about a year ago, and liked it. But I had to switch to a different distribution after a couple of months because there were virtually NO updates coming in at all. I'd say that Ubuntu updates like crazy, but no updates at all in several months makes it very likely that they just don't have enough manpower to provide such a service. And that does make your distribution vulnerable. My experience may be outdated, but I'd bet it's still the same given this article...

Comment No Mantle for Xbox/PS (Score 1) 212

> AMD/ATI also has introduced MANTLE Api for lower level access than DirectX which is cross platform. This may turn into a very important API as AMD/ATI have their GPUs in the next generation Sony and Xbox consoles as well with a large marketshare for game developers to target

I read somewhere that that's unfortunately not true; Mantle will not be available for the new Xbox or Playstation. My speculation is that Microsoft and Sony don't actually want to be THAT compatible as it would make porting too easy...

Comment Re:Oh really? (Score 2, Interesting) 211

And I still see less then 1 per month in my Inbox.
_THIS_ is the price I am willing to pay to allow Google to filter my email.

I do agree that gmail's spam filter does not let much through, in truth, it is way too aggressive. Are you subscribed to mailing lists? Often it'll just tag some random message as spam. I've had various things end up in spam over the years, and really wonder how many landed in there that I never noticed (who checks their spam folder every couple of days?).

Recently I got very upset because I tried to sell something on craigslist, and sure enough, an offer ended up in spam. Of course I didn't check until a couple of days later, and by then the person wasn't interested any more. Since I'm going to start job hunting soon, I can't really afford the uncertainty the gmail spam filter introduces, and plan on moving my email elsewhere.

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